Systems and Methods for Delivering Tailored Content Based Upon a Consumer Profile

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure includes a system, method, and article of manufacture for aggregating a consumer profile, identifying tailored content (e.g., in response to a trigger event and/or based upon a consumer profile), and/or tailoring a digital destination. For example, the systems may receive direct data indicating an interest in receiving specific content, aggregate that data into a consumer profile, compare the consumer profile to content, and/or identify tailored content based upon the comparison. Further, the systems may communicate the tailored content to a web client associated with a consumer, receive a transaction request from a web client, and/or receive bids associated with tailored content. In addition, these systems may prioritize tailored content comprising a plurality of tailored offers and/or forecast a budget for an upcoming experience.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of, claims priority to and thebenefit of, U.S. Ser. No. 13/488,285 filed on Jun. 4, 2012 and entitled“SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DELIVERING TAILORED CONTENT BASED UPON ACONSUMER PROFILE,” which is incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

The present disclosure generally relates to electronic communication.More particularly, the present disclosure relates to tailored electroniccommunication.

2. Background

Merchants are often hampered in their marketing efforts by a variety offactors. For instance, consumers are commonly asked to provide a varietyof personal information to any merchant with whom they wish to transact(e.g., from whom they wish to receive an offer and/or make a purchase).Such a personal information request may, for example, discourageconsumers from dealing with vaguely known or unknown merchants. Whenconsumers elect, in certain circumstances, not to provide personalinformation to merchants, merchants are typically unable to providetailored or customized services to these consumers. Thus, for example,merchants with little information about potential customers may conductinefficient and poorly targeted marketing campaigns.

Moreover, although merchants may capture personal information (e.g.,email addresses, phone numbers, etc.), very often, merchants are unable,even with this information, to develop a complete picture of aconsumer's preferences. For example, merchants are often unable (evenwith consumer personal information) to establish preferences like “donot disturb” and/or a preference to receive a certain type of offerand/or a preference not to receive a certain offer or type of offer.

Similarly, although merchants may at times capture some personalinformation (e.g., email address, name, etc.), it is often difficult formerchants to collect much additional information, for example,information sufficient to develop one or more consumer preferences,because attempts to request additional customer information may overlyhamper the checkout process—i.e., consumers may simply find itcumbersome to provide significant amounts of information duringcheckout.

In addition, as merchants attempt to collect information about theircustomers, very often this information is regarded as proprietary. Thus,the customer preference data merchants do collect is typicallymaintained independently by a variety of merchants. Merchants aretherefore often unable (even with certain information) to completelyunderstand the preferences of their customers, while consumers are ineffect refused (by virtue of the fractured and incomplete picturemerchants often have of their preferences) access to relevant anddesirable content.

Further, although merchants are able to collect certain informationabout their customers (e.g., a merchant may collect a name of a customerwho makes a purchase at the merchant and the last 4 digits of thecustomer's transaction account number), typically, the data collected bymerchants about their customers is not useful to those merchants. Forexample, although a merchant may collect a customer's name, transactionaccount number, dates associated with purchases, and/or purchasingpreferences (e.g., a restaurant may know that a customer visits everyMonday and orders the same dish from the menu), this information maynevertheless be of little use to the merchant, as the merchant may beunable to communicate with the customer (e.g., although the merchant mayknow that the customer visits on Monday evenings, it is unlikely thatthe merchant will know that the customer has actually entered itspremises to make a purchase). Thus, the data that merchants are able tocollect is often put to little or no use.

Thus, what is needed is a system in which consumers may confidently andsafely receive tailored and relevant content, and in which merchants mayleverage the personal preferences of consumers to more accurately targetand tailor content to those consumers. Further, what is needed is asystem in which merchants are provided general, nonspecific, and/oraggregate data about consumers. For example, a system in which merchantsreceive an age range associated with one or more consumers (as opposedto an exact age associated with those consumers) is needed. In otherwords, what is needed is a system in which merchants receive profilecharacteristics or data, but in which the data is aggregate or summarydata, as opposed to consumer specific. Thus, a consumer's privacy may bepreserved, while merchants are sufficiently equipped to offer tailored,relevant content based upon the user's aggregate profilecharacteristics.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure includes systems, methods, and article ofmanufactures for aggregating a consumer profile, identifying tailoredcontent (e.g., in response to a trigger event and/or based upon aconsumer profile), and/or tailoring a digital destination. For example,in various embodiments, the systems may receive direct data indicatingan interest in receiving specific content, aggregate that data into aconsumer profile, compare the consumer profile to content, and/oridentify tailored content based upon the comparison. Further, in variousembodiments, the systems may communicate the tailored content to a webclient associated with a consumer, receive a transaction request from aweb client, and/or receive bids associated with tailored content. Inaddition, these systems may prioritize tailored content comprising aplurality of tailored offers and/or forecast a budget for an upcomingexperience.

Further, in various embodiments, the systems may compare content to aconsumer profile, identify tailored content based on the comparing,and/or transmit the tailored content to a data partner system (e.g., inresponse to selection by a consumer of an option to tailor a digitaldestination), wherein the data partner system tailors the digitaldestination based on the tailored content. In addition, in variousembodiments, the systems may transmit a consumer profile to a datapartner system, whereupon the data partner system may tailor a digitaldestination based upon the consumer profile. Further, in variousembodiments, the systems may authenticate a consumer to a consumeraccount associated with a consumer profile, identify tailored contentbased upon a match between content and a preference associated with aconsumer profile, and/or receive a transaction request from a web clientassociated with a consumer.

Further still, in various embodiments, the systems may receive one ormore of direct data and/or indirect data, and/or aggregate a consumerprofile based upon the direct and/or indirect data. Additionally, thesesystems may receive a specific preference from a consumer, determine apattern and/or a preference associated with direct and/or indirect data,and/or determine that a threshold amount of purchases associated with aconsumer are associated with a consumer preference. Aggregation of aconsumer profile may further comprise determining that a consumerbrowses to a digital destination associated with a consumer preference,and a consumer profile may be ranked and/or updated based upon feedbackdata.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The features and advantages of the present disclosure will become moreapparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken inconjunction with the drawings. The left-most digit of a reference numberidentifies the drawing in which the reference number first appears.

FIG. 1 shows a logical representation of content in accordance withvarious embodiments.

FIG. 2 shows a logical representation of a consumer profile inaccordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 3 shows an exemplary system diagram in accordance with variousembodiments.

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart depicting an exemplary process for aggregatinga consumer profile.

FIG. 5 shows a flowchart depicting an exemplary process for deliveringtailored content to consumers in which a data partner system performs ananalysis in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart depicting an exemplary process for deliveringtailored content to consumers in which a trusted system performs ananalysis in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart depicting an exemplary process for tailoring adigital destination in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 8 shows a flowchart depicting an exemplary process for deliveringtailored content to consumers in accordance with various embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems for delivering tailored content to consumers are disclosed. Moreparticularly, in various embodiments, systems in which consumers receivetailored content based upon consumer profile data are disclosed.

The detailed description of exemplary embodiments herein makes referenceto the accompanying drawings, which show the exemplary embodiments byway of illustration. While these exemplary embodiments are described insufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice thedisclosure, it should be understood that other embodiments may berealized and that logical and mechanical changes may be made withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the disclosure. Thus, thedetailed description herein is presented for purposes of illustrationonly and not of limitation. For example, the steps recited in any of themethod or process descriptions may be executed in any order and are notlimited to the order presented. Moreover, any of the functions or stepsmay be outsourced to or performed by one or more third parties.Furthermore, any reference to singular includes plural embodiments, andany reference to more than one component may include a singularembodiment.

As used herein, terms such as “consumer” and “customer” may refer to anyindividual, group, entity, organization, machine, hardware, software,business, and/or combination of these.

The phrases consumer, customer, user, account holder, cardmember or thelike shall include any person, entity, business, governmentorganization, business, software, hardware, machine associated with atransaction account, buys merchant offerings offered by one or moremerchants using the account and/or who is legally designated forperforming transactions on the account, regardless of whether a physicalcard is associated with the account. For example, the cardmember mayinclude a transaction account owner, an transaction account user, anaccount affiliate, a child account user, a subsidiary account user, abeneficiary of an account, a custodian of an account, and/or any otherperson or entity affiliated or associated with a transaction account.

For instance, a “consumer” may comprise any individual who interfaceswith a system for delivering tailored content (e.g., system 300). A bankmay be part of the system, but the bank may represent other types ofcard issuing institutions, such as credit card companies, cardsponsoring companies, or third party issuers under contract withfinancial institutions. It is further noted that other participants maybe involved in some phases of the transaction, such as an intermediarysettlement institution, but these participants are not shown.

Phrases and terms similar to “business” or “merchant” may be usedinterchangeably with each other and shall mean any person, entity,distributor system, software and/or hardware that is a provider, brokerand/or any other entity in the distribution chain of goods or services.For example, a merchant may be a grocery store, a retail store, a travelagency, a service provider, an on-line merchant or the like. In variousembodiments, a merchant may request payment for goods sold to a customeror consumer who holds an account with a transaction account issuer.

As used herein, the phrase “data partner” may refer to any person,entity, distributor system, merchant, business, software and/or hardwarethat receives data from, transmits data to, and/or exchanges data withanother person, entity, distributor system, trusted system, softwareand/or hardware. In various embodiments, the phrase “data partner” mayrefer to a business or merchant that transmits data to, receives datafrom, and/or exchanges data with a trusted system, as described morefully below. A data partner may comprise a merchant and/or a restaurant.

As used herein, “transmit,” “communicate” and/or “deliver” may includesending electronic data from one system component to another over anetwork connection. Additionally, as used herein, “data” may includeencompassing information such as commands, queries, files, data forstorage, and the like in digital or any other form.

Phrases and terms similar to an “item” may include any good, service,information, experience, activity, data, content, access, rental, lease,contribution, account, credit, debit, benefit, right, reward, points,coupons, credits, monetary equivalent, anything of value, something ofminimal or no value, monetary value, non-monetary value and/or the like.In various embodiments, items may include “menu items,” such as, forexample, food and other consumable goods, services related to foodsand/or consumable goods, and the like.

As used herein, “content” may comprise any data and/or information.Content may comprise one or more items and/or data associated with oneor more items, as discussed elsewhere herein. Content may furthercomprise one or more characteristics or metadata. The characteristics ormetadata associated with content may describe one or more attributesassociated with the content.

For illustrative purposes, and with reference to FIG. 1, a logicalrepresentation of content 102 is shown. In various embodiments, content102 may comprise content data 104. Content data 104 may provideinformation about content (e.g., a general description of content, suchas a name of the item associated with the content). Thus, for example,content data 104 may specify that content 102 is related to a “Hawaiianvacation” (e.g., content 102 may comprise an offer for a Hawaiianvacation). Content may comprise menu content. Menu content may, invarious embodiments, comprise content related to one or more menu itemsas described in U.S. Ser. No. 13/488,197, filed on Jun. 4, 2012 andentitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DELIVERING TAILORED MENU CONTENT BASEDUPON A CONSUMER PROFILE,” which is hereby incorporated by reference.Content 102 may further comprise one or more characteristics or contentmetadata 106. Content metadata 106 may provide additional informationabout content (e.g., one or more attributes or characteristicsassociated with the content). For example, where content data 104 maybroadly indicate that content 102 is related to a “Hawaiian vacation,”content metadata 106 may more particularly indicate that content 102 isalso associated with “Travel,” a “June offer,” and/or “Scuba diving,”

In various embodiments, a system may “identify” tailored content bycreating content, analyzing content in relation to and/or in associationwith (e.g., based upon) consumer profile data, looking content up and/orlocating or identifying content in a database, flat file, and/or lookuptable, any combination of these, and/or the like.

The phrase “digital destination” may refer to any content that ispresented electronically and/or capable of being presentedelectronically. For example, a digital destination may comprise awebsite, a uniform resource locator (“URL”), a document (e.g., aMicrosoft Word document, a Microsoft Excel document, an Adobe .pdfdocument, etc.), an “ebook,” an “emagazine,” an application ormicroapplication (as described herein), a text message, an email, andthe like. In various embodiments, a digital destination may be hosted orprovided by a data partner.

A “consumer profile” or “consumer profile data” may comprise anyinformation or data about a consumer that describes a preference and/orinterest of the consumer. For illustrative purposes, a logicalrepresentation of an exemplary consumer profile or consumer profile datais depicted at FIG. 2. However, FIG. 2 should be regarded asillustrative only. Consumer profile data may be organized in other ways,all of which are contemplated by the present disclosure. Therefore, asshown, consumer profile 202 may be organized as a set of relationaldata, and this data may be saved, for example, in a database structure(e.g., a consumer profile database). Thus, consumer profile 202 maycomprise one or more categories or preferences (e.g., preferences204-208), each of which may be related to an item and/or content inwhich a consumer may have an interest. As also shown, each preference204-208 may comprise one or more subcategories or subpreferences (e.g.,subpreferences 204 a-c, 206 a-c, and/or 208 a-c). Each subpreference maydescribe an additional feature associated with each preference and/or amore detailed preference. Thus, for example, where a preference 204describes a consumer's lodging preferences, a first subpreference 204 amay describe a preference associated with a room type (e.g., smoking,non-smoking, bed size/type, etc.). Similarly, a second subpreference 204b may describe a preference associated with checkout (e.g., latecheckout, early checkout, etc.), while a third subpreference 204 c maydescribe a consumer's preferences associated with spa amenities (e.g.,massage, pool, etc.)

In various embodiments, a consumer profile may include certainpersonally identifying information (or “PII”) and/or other informationassociated with a consumer, all or part of which may be useful forfilling out or entering data in a web based form. However, in variousembodiments, a consumer profile may not include PII. Where a consumerprofile includes PII, however, a consumer may leverage a consumerprofile to automatically enter data in a web based form. For instance, aconsumer may authenticate to a consumer account, where in response, theconsumer may select an option displayed by a digital destination and/ora web based form to automatically populate (or “auto-populate”) the formbased on the consumer profile.

In various embodiments, a consumer profile or consumer profile data maybe based upon a variety of data. For example, a consumer profile may bebased upon “indirect data” and/or “direct data.”

“Indirect data” may comprise data that is received, culled, collected,and/or derived from a variety of sources, such as a consumer'stransaction history or transaction data (e.g., a consumer's travelhistory, data about what a consumer purchases or purchase transactiondata, data about where a consumer makes purchases, data about how much aconsumer spends on one or more items like vacations or trips, and thelike), location data (as described below), data associated with oravailable via a consumer's social networking profile (e.g., a consumer'sFACEBOOK profile), data associated with a customer's physical locationor location data, demographic data, and/or other publicly and/orprivately available sources of information about a consumer. In variousembodiments, a consumer profile may not be derived from and/or basedupon indirect data unless a consumer opts in or requests that indirectdata be used.

“Direct data” may comprise data contributed by a consumer (“consumercontributed data”) and/or data contributed by a data partner (“datapartner contributed data”). In various embodiments, consumer contributeddata may comprise data contributed by a consumer such as location data,a consumer's personal information, e.g., a consumer's demographic data,a consumer's date of birth, a consumer's residence information, aspecific preference associated with the consumer (e.g., a preference fora certain type of vacation, e.g., a preference for a tropical vacation),a digital destination in which the consumer is interested, and the like.Similarly, in various embodiments, data partner contributed data maycomprise data contributed by a data partner, such as a purchase that aconsumer made from the data partner (e.g., where the NEW YORK TIMES is adata partner, data partner contributed data may comprise informationabout which articles a consumer selected via the data partner website),location data, and the like. Thus, in general, consumer contributed datamay comprise any data or information that a consumer contributes orenters (e.g., via a web client), while data partner contributed data maycomprise any data or information that a data partner contributes orenters.

With respect to the types of direct data a consumer may contribute, ingeneral, a consumer may contribute any information that the consumerwould like to serve as a basis for a consumer profile. For instance, aconsumer may contribute location data (e.g., data associated with aglobal positioning system, a home address, a work address, familylocation data, data about a consumer's most shopped or favorite shoppinglocations, data about a consumer's most visited or favorite places, andthe like), data associated with a consumer's favorite websites ordigital destinations (e.g., blogs, news websites, research websites,financial websites, etc.), personal data (e.g., email addresses,physical addresses, phone numbers, age information, income information,expenses information, etc.), data associated with a consumer's status ormode of travel (e.g., vacation data, business data, personal data,airline data, lodging data, etc.), data associated with a consumer'sfavorite items (e.g., food, restaurants, groceries, electronics, music,gaming, clothing types, hobbies, fitness, etc.), and the like.

With further regard to location data, data of this type may be collectedin varying granularity. For instance, location data may be collected inreal time (or nearly real time) and/or location data may be collectedabout a consumer after a certain period of time (e.g., in variousembodiments, after several hours or days have passed since the consumerwas in a location). Similarly, location data may be collected based on aprecise or pinpoint location of a consumer (e.g., within several metersor city blocks of the consumer's actual physical location) and/or basedon a more broadly circumscribed location of a consumer (e.g., severalmiles, within a particular city or zipcode, and the like). Thus, invarious embodiments, a consumer's privacy may be protected by a timelapse between a consumer's actual physical presence in a location andcollection of location data as well as by a more or less granulardetermination of a consumer's location.

With respect to the types of direct data a data partner and/or datapartner system 108 may contribute toward a consumer profile, in variousembodiments, exemplary data may include demographic data, location data,online tracking cookie data, web beacon data, web tracking data, webpacket trace data, digital fingerprint data, clickstream data, purchaseor transaction history data, data entered by a consumer in a web basedform, data purchased by the data partner about the consumer, socialnetworking data, banking and/or credit card data, stock keeping unit(“SKU”) data, transactional and/or budget data, coupon data, retail data(e.g., items purchased, wish lists, etc.), data from third partypersonal data aggregators, search engine data, and/or any other datawhich the data partner may have in its possession or to which the datapartner may gain access.

In various embodiments, a consumer may specify that a consumer profilemay be based upon certain direct and/or indirect data, but that theprofile should not be based upon other direct and/or indirect data. Forexample, a consumer may specify that the consumer's profile may be basedupon data associated with the consumer's transaction history, but maynot be based upon data culled from the consumer's social networkingprofile.

Phrases and terms similar to “account,” “transaction account,”“account,” “account number,” “account code,” and/or “consumer account”may include any account that may be used to facilitate a financialtransaction. These accounts may include any device, code (e.g., one ormore of an authorization/access code, personal identification number(“PIN”), Internet code, other identification code, and/or the like),number, letter, symbol, digital certificate, smart chip, digital signal,analog signal, biometric or other identifier/indicia suitably configuredto allow the consumer to access, interact with or communicate with thesystem. The account number may optionally be located on or associatedwith a rewards account, charge account, credit account, debit account,prepaid account, telephone card, embossed card, smart card, magneticstripe card, bar code card, transponder, radio frequency card or anassociated account.

In general, tailored content may be identified for and/or delivered toconsumers based upon a variety of analyses which may be performed by avariety of systems. For example, tailored content may be identifiedbased upon an analysis performed by a trusted system (e.g., a systemowned by a transaction account issuer, such as American Express TravelRelated Services Company, Inc., which maintains closed loop or internaldata, as described elsewhere herein). In various embodiments, tailoredcontent may be identified based upon an analysis performed by a datapartner system. Moreover, in various embodiments (e.g., where a datapartner system performs an analysis), the analysis may be based uponconsumer profile data, which a trusted system may supply or transmit tothe data partner system. Likewise, in various embodiments (e.g., where atrusted system performs an analysis), the analysis may be based uponcontent supplied or transmitted to the trusted system by a data partnersystem. Further still, tailored content may be identified based bothupon an analysis performed by a data partner system as well as ananalysis performed by a trusted system.

Accordingly, and with reference to FIG. 3, an exemplary system 300 foraggregating consumer profile data and/or identifying tailored content isdisclosed. In various embodiments, system 300 may comprise a web client302, a network 304, a trusted system 306, a data partner system 308, acentralized content database 310, and/or a merchant content database312.

Web client 302 may include any device (e.g., a personal computer, amobile communications device, and the like) which communicates via anynetwork, for example such as those discussed herein. Web client 302 mayinclude one or more browsers or browser applications and/or applicationprograms, including browser applications comprising Internet browsingsoftware installed within a computing unit or a system to conduct onlinetransactions and/or communications. For example, in various embodiments,web client 302 may include (and run) Microsoft Internet Explorer,Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and/or any softwarepackage available for browsing the Internet.

A computing unit or system may take the form of a computer or set ofcomputers, although other types of computing units or systems may beused, including tablets, laptops, notebooks, hand held computers,personal digital assistants, cellular phones, smart phones, set-topboxes, workstations, computer-servers, main frame computers,mini-computers, PC servers, pervasive computers, network sets ofcomputers, personal computers, such as iPads, iMACs, and MacBooks,kiosks, terminals, point of sale (POS) devices and/or terminals,televisions, GPS receivers, in-dash vehicle displays, and/or any otherdevice capable of receiving data over a network. The computing unit ofthe web client 302 may be further equipped with an Internet browserconnected to the Internet or an intranet using standard dial-up, cable,DSL or any other Internet protocol known in the art. Transactionsoriginating at a web client 302 may pass through a firewall in order toprevent unauthorized access from users of other networks. Further,additional firewalls may be deployed between the varying components ofsystem 300 to further enhance security.

Web client 302 may or may not be in direct contact with an applicationserver. For example, web client 302 may access the services of anapplication server through another server and/or hardware component,which may have a direct or indirect connection to an Internet server.For example, web client 302 may communicate with an application servervia a load balancer and/or a web sever. In an exemplary embodiment,access is through a network or the Internet through acommercially-available web-browser software package.

Web client 302 may further include an operating system (e.g., WindowsNT/95/98/2000/XP/Vista/7/8/CE/Mobile, OS2, UNIX, Linux, Solaris, MacOS,PalmOS, etc.) as well as various conventional support software anddrivers typically associated with computers. Web client 302 may be in ahome or business environment with access to a network. Web client 302may implement security protocols such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) andTransport Layer Security (TLS). Web client 302 may further implementseveral application layer protocols including http, https, ftp, andsftp.

Network 304 may include any electronic communications system or methodwhich incorporates hardware and/or software components (e.g. a “cloud”or “cloud computing” system, as described herein). Communication amongparties via network 304 may be accomplished through any suitablecommunication channels, such as, for example, a telephone network, anextranet, an intranet, Internet, point of interaction device (point ofsale device, personal digital assistant (e.g., IPHONE, PALM PILOT,BLACKBERRY), cellular phone, kiosk, etc.), online communications,satellite communications, off-line communications, wirelesscommunications, transponder communications, local area network (LAN),wide area network (WAN), virtual private network (VPN), networked orlinked devices, keyboard, mouse and/or any suitable communication ordata input modality. Moreover, although the system 300 is frequentlydescribed herein as being implemented with TCP/IP communicationsprotocols, the system may also be implemented using IPX, Appletalk,IP-6, NetBIOS, OSI, any tunneling protocol (e.g. IPsec, SSH), or anynumber of existing or future protocols. If network 304 is in the natureof a public network, such as the Internet, it may be advantageous topresume network 304 to be insecure and open to eavesdroppers. Specificinformation related to the protocols, standards, and applicationsoftware utilized in connection with the Internet is generally known tothose skilled in the art and, as such, need not be detailed herein. See,for example, DILP NAIK, INTERNET STANDARDS AND PROTOCOLs (1998); JAVA 2COMPLETE, various authors, (Sybex 1999); DEBORAH RAY AND ERIC RAY,MASTERING HTML 4.0 (1997); and LOSHIN, TCP/IP CLEARLY EXPLAINED (1997)and DAVID GOURLEY AND BRIAN TOTTY, HTTP, THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE (2002),the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

The various system components may be independently and separately orcollectively suitably coupled to network 304 via data links whichinclude, for example, a connection to an Internet Service Provider (ISP)over the local loop as is typically used in connection with standardmodem communication, cable modem, Dish networks, ISDN, DigitalSubscriber Line (DSL), or various wireless communication methods, see,e.g., GILBERT HELD, UNDERSTANDING DATA COMMUNICATIONS (1996), which ishereby incorporated by reference. It is noted that network 304 may beimplemented variously, such as, for example, as an interactivetelevision (ITV) network. Moreover, this disclosure contemplates theuse, sale or distribution of any goods, services or information over anynetwork having similar functionality described herein.

As used herein, a “cloud” or “cloud computing” may describe a model forenabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool ofconfigurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and releasedwith minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Cloudcomputing may include location-independent computing, whereby sharedservers provide resources, software, and data to computers and otherdevices on demand. For more information regarding cloud computing, seethe NIST's (National Institute of Standards and Technology) definitionof cloud computing athttp://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/cloud-def-v15.doc (lastvisited Feb. 4, 2011), which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

Trusted system 306 may comprise hardware and/or software configured toaggregate a consumer profile and/or identify tailored content based upona consumer profile. In various embodiments, trusted system 306 may beassociated with a transaction account issuer (e.g., American Express,Visa, Mastercard, etc.). Moreover, in certain embodiments (e.g., wheretrusted system is associated with American Express), trusted system 306may comprise a variety of “closed loop” transaction data associated witha consumer (e.g., as described elsewhere herein). In variousembodiments, trusted system 306 may comprise a three-tiered serverarchitecture. For example, trusted system 306 may comprise a web server,an application server, and/or a profile database.

A profile database may comprise hardware and/or software configured tostore data. For example, a profile database may comprise a serverappliance running a suitable server operating system (e.g., MICROSOFTINTERNET INFORMATION SERVICES or, “IIS”) and having database software(e.g., Oracle) installed thereon. In various embodiments, a profiledatabase may store consumer profile data. As described elsewhere herein,consumer profile data may include data associated with a consumer'spreferences (e.g., preferences for certain activities, preferences forcertain experiences, preferences for certain items and/or types of items(e.g., menu items), preferences for certain locations, and/or the like.

Data partner system 308 may comprise any hardware and/or softwareassociated with and/or owned and/or operated by a data partner, asdescribed above. In various embodiments, data partner system 308 maycomprise a web client, a web server, and/or an application server. Datapartner system 308 may communicate over network 304. In variousembodiments, data partner system 308 may communicate with web client 302via network 304 to identify and/or deliver tailored content based uponmember profile data.

A centralized content database 310 may comprise any hardware and/orsoftware configured to store data. For example, centralized contentdatabase 310 may comprise a server appliance running a suitable serveroperating system (e.g., IIS) and having database software (e.g., Oracle)installed thereon. Centralized content database 310 may store content,which may be uploaded or transmitted to centralized content database 310by one or more data partner (e.g., merchant) systems. Thus, centralizedcontent database 310 may store content for (or associated with) avariety of merchant systems. Moreover, in various embodiments,centralized content database 310 may be coupled directly to trustedsystem 306 and/or to network 304. Thus, centralized content database 310may physically reside in a variety of locations.

A data partner content database 312 may comprise any hardware and/orsoftware configured to store data. For example, data partner contentdatabase 312 may comprise a server appliance running a suitable serveroperating system (e.g. IIS) and having database software (e.g., Oracle)installed thereon. Data partner content database 312 may store contentuploaded or transmitted by a single data partner (e.g., merchant)system. Moreover, in various embodiments, data partner content database312 may be coupled directly to trusted system 306 and/or to network 304.Thus, data partner content database 310 may physically reside in avariety of locations.

Referring broadly now to FIGS. 4-8, the process flows, logicalrepresentations, and/or screen shots depicted are merely embodiments andare not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure. For example, thesteps recited in any of the method or process descriptions may beexecuted in any order and are not limited to the order presented. Itwill be appreciated that the following description makes appropriatereferences not only to the steps depicted in FIGS. 4-8 but also to thevarious system components and/or logical representations as describedabove with reference to FIGS. 1-3.

With reference now to FIG. 4, a process 400 for aggregating a consumerprofile, or consumer profile data, is described. In general, a consumerprofile may be based upon direct and/or indirect data. Thus, as shown,trusted system 306 may receive direct data (as described elsewhereherein), and/or trusted system 306 may receive or collect indirect data(as described elsewhere herein) (steps 402 and 404). For example,trusted system 306 may receive from a consumer (e.g., a consumeroperating a web client 302) a particular preference or interest of theconsumer (e.g., an interest in a tropical vacation), and/or trustedsystem 306 may, receive or collect data associated with a consumer'stransaction history, from which trusted system 306 may determine, invarious embodiments, that the consumer has a particular preference orinterest (e.g., because the consumer's transaction history shows apattern of vacationing in tropical locales during the summertime,trusted system 306 may infer or determine based upon the transactionhistory that the consumer is interested in vacationing in such localesduring the summertime).

A consumer may contribute direct data, in various embodiments, byregistering to receive a consumer account and/or authenticating (e.g.,using a standard two factor authentication process, such as a usernameand password) to an existing consumer account. A consumer account maygive access to and/or be associated with a consumer profile. Thus, invarious embodiments, a consumer may register for and/or authenticate toa consumer account, and, having done so, the consumer may contributedirect data. In various embodiments, trusted system 306 may perform theauthentication and/or validate the consumer account.

In various embodiments, a consumer may authenticate to a consumeraccount by selecting an option (e.g., a “button” displayed as part of aweb-based interface and/or a digital destination) to authenticate to aconsumer account from a digital destination. Further, a consumer mayremain authenticated to the consumer's account for a specified period oftime (e.g., twenty-four hours). Thus, trusted system 306 may facilitatea “single sign on” process or event.

A data partner or a data partner system 308 (which may both be referredto herein, for simplicity, as data partner system 308) may contributedirect data, in various embodiments, toward a consumer preference in avariety of ways. For example, data partner system 308 may register toreceive a data partner account and/or authenticate (e.g., using astandard two factor authentication process, such as a username andpassword) to an existing data partner account. A data partner accountmay permit data partner system 308 to transmit data associated with aconsumer to trusted system 306. A data partner account may further, invarious embodiments, permit data partner system 308 to receive aconsumer profile. Likewise, as described above, a data partner mayauthenticate to a data partner account by way of a “single sign on”process or event.

Thus, in various embodiments, data partner system 308 may register forand/or authenticate to a data partner account prior to transmitting dataassociated with a consumer. In various embodiments, trusted system 306may perform the authentication and/or validate the data partner account.Further, in various embodiments, data partner system 308 may notregister for and/or authenticate to a data partner account. Rather, datapartner system 308 may simply transmit data associated with a consumerto trusted system 306 (e.g., without authenticating to a data partneraccount). In various embodiments, trusted system 306 may validate a datapartner account and/or validate data transmitted to trusted system 306by data partner system 308.

With continuing reference to FIG. 4, having received direct and/orcollected indirect data, trusted system 306 may aggregate the directand/or indirect data to generate a consumer profile (step 406). Invarious embodiments, aggregation of direct and/or indirect data maycomprise analyzing, by trusted system 306, direct and/or indirect datato identify or determine one or more patterns and/or preferences inand/or associated with the data. Although innumerable patterns and/orpreferences may be identified, several examples are shown below toillustrate an aggregation process.

Accordingly, and for example, trusted system 306 may aggregate aconsumer's transaction account history (e.g., as described herein) todetermine that a threshold percentage or amount of a consumer'spurchases were made with respect to (or may be associated with) aparticular consumer preference and/or subpreference. More particularly,trusted system 306 may, in various embodiments, determine that athreshold percentage or amount of a consumer's purchases may beassociated with a consumer preference, such as “Travel,” which mayindicate that a consumer spends or has spent in the past at least thethreshold percentage on the consumer preference (e.g., across theconsumer's total transactional history during a specified time period),and/or that the consumer has spent at least the threshold amount onitems related to the particular consumer preference (e.g., where thepreference is “Travel,” related items may comprise vacations, hotelreservations, guidebooks, etc.)

Trusted system 306 may similarly determine, for example, that a consumerhas contributed data associated with a specific interest or preference.For example, trusted system 306 may determine that a consumer hasspecifically contributed an interest in a consumer preference such as“Gaming” and/or items related to gaming. Where trusted system 306identifies a specific interest, trusted system 306 may aggregate theinterest as part of a consumer profile.

Further, in various embodiments, trusted system 306 may determine, e.g.,based upon data partner contributed data, that a consumer often browsesto digital destinations associated with a consumer preference such as“Travel,” and/or trusted system 306 may “scrape,” parse, and/or index adigital destination to identify one or more consumer preferences whichmay be associated with the digital destination (e.g., the NEW YORK TIMESwebsite may comprise a digital destination, and scraping the website mayyield preferences for travel, scuba diving, tropical vacations, etc.)

Thus, trusted system 306 may determine, based upon an aggregation ofdirect and/or indirect data, that a consumer has one or more interestsin one or more consumer preferences. Additionally, in variousembodiments, trusted system 306 and/or data partner system 308 maydelete any direct and/or indirect data relied upon for the aggregationof a consumer profile. Thus, consumers may be assured that their privacyis protected and that only their consumer profile is stored by trustedsystem 306. In addition, a consumer profile may comprise summary dataand/or data that is not personally identifying. For example, a consumerprofile may comprise an age range of a consumer as opposed to a specificage of the consumer. Thus, a consumer's privacy may be further protectedwhere a consumer profile is limited to summary or non-personallyidentifying information.

In various embodiments, trusted system 306 may further rank consumerpreferences (step 408). For instance, trusted system 306 may rank one ormore consumer preferences and/or subpreferences based upon one or morerules. In various embodiments, trusted system 306 may rank consumerpreferences according to a percentage and/or an amount of spendingassociated with a consumer preference (e.g., a preference associatedwith a highest percentage and/or spending amount may be ranked as ahighest or most significant preference, while a preference associatedwith a lower percentage and/or spending amount may be ranked as a loweror less significant preference). Similarly, in various embodiments(e.g., where a consumer specifically contributes a preference), aconsumer may contribute a consumer preference as well as associate aranking (e.g., highest to lowest, a number of stars or thumbs up, anumerical scale, and the like) with a contributed consumer preference.

Moreover, in various embodiments (e.g., where a consumer preference isbased upon a behavior of a consumer), a consumer preference may beranked based upon, for example, a frequency of the behavior. Forinstance, a ranking for a preference associated with a particulardigital destination may be based upon a frequency with which a consumerbrowses to or visits the destination (e.g., more frequently browsedand/or visited destinations may be ranked higher or as more significantthan less frequently browsed or visited destinations).

Further, in various embodiments, a preference and/or subpreference maybe weighted (step 408). For instance, trusted system 306 may associate apreference and/or subpreference with a weight indicating how strongly aconsumer prefers content (and/or an item) associated with the preferenceor subpreference. For example, trusted system 306 may calculate a weightto associate with the preference and/or subpreference based upon all ora portion of the direct and/or indirect data upon which the preferenceis based. Thus, where for example a consumer's transaction historysuggests a preference for tropical vacations, trusted system 306 maydetermine that, based upon the consumer's transaction history (and/orother data), a weight of 75% should be associated with the preferencefor tropical vacations. A weight of 75% may indicate, for example, thattrusted system 306 estimates and/or calculates that the consumer willaccept an offer related to a tropical vacation 75% of the time and/orthat the consumer's browsing history indicates that the consumer clickson or selects content related to tropical vacations approximately 75% ofthe time. Further, where a consumer receives content based upon aweighted preference, the consumer's reaction to the content (e.g.,whether the consumer accepted an offer tailored and delivered to theconsumer based upon the preference) may be factored back into theweighting—e.g., the weighting may be reduced in response to an eventthat suggests the consumer is not interested in the content (e.g., theconsumer does not select or click on the content, the consumer does notaccept an offer, etc.), and/or the weighting may be increased or remainunaffected by an event that suggests that the consumer is interested inthe content (e.g., selection of the content, acceptance of an offer).Thus, in various embodiments, trusted system 106 may aggregate directand/or indirect data to generate a consumer profile, rank, and/or weightone or more member preferences and/or subpreferences comprising theconsumer profile.

In various embodiments, a consumer may not only contribute data toward aconsumer profile but update or maintain an existing consumer profile(step 410). More particularly, in various embodiments, a consumer mayauthenticate to an existing consumer account to specify, for example,that a particular data source should not serve as a basis for a consumerprofile and/or that a particular data type should not serve as a basisfor a consumer profile. Thus, for example, a consumer may specify that atransaction history associated with the consumer should not serve as abasis for aggregating one or more consumer preferences and/or that adigital destination should not serve as a basis for aggregating one ormore consumer preferences. A consumer may further adjust the types ofdata (as described elsewhere herein) underlying a consumer profile. Forexample, a consumer may indicate that the consumer's transaction historythat occurs on the weekend is not representative of the consumer'sinterests during the week and that the consumer's weekend transactionhistory should therefore be excluded from the data used to aggregate theconsumer's profile. Further still, a consumer may update a consumerprofile to exclude a preference and/or subpreference from the consumer'sprofile. For example, a consumer who only likes to travel during thesummertime may exclude a preference and/or subpreference for travelduring the wintertime from the consumer's profile.

With reference now to FIG. 5, a process 500 for identifying and/ordelivering tailored content to a consumer is shown. More particularly,FIG. 5 shows a process 500 in which tailored content may be identifiedfor and/or delivered to a consumer based upon an analysis performed by adata partner system 308 (as opposed to by a trusted system 306, whichanalysis is described elsewhere herein).

In various embodiments, a consumer may set one or more permissions orflags indicating one or more privileged data partners (e.g., merchants)or privileged types or groups of data partners who are eligible toreceive a consumer profile (step 502). For example, a consumer may set apermission indicating that a first data partner (e.g., BANANA REPUBLIC)is eligible to receive a consumer profile. Likewise, a consumer may seta permission indicating that a type of data partner (e.g., merchants whooffer lodging) or a group of data partners (e.g., all merchants within aparticular location such as a shopping mall) are eligible to receive aconsumer profile. A consumer may select privileged data partners basedon a variety of considerations. However, in various embodiments, and forpurposes of illustration, a consumer may designate data partners asprivileged data partners based on a consumer's interest in items offeredfor sale by certain data partners, a transaction history with certaindata partners, a location of certain data partners, and the like.

In various embodiments, a consumer may not, however, designate one ormore privileged data partners. Where this is the case, any data partnersystem 308 may receive a consumer profile. Similarly, a consumer maydesignate one or more data partners who are not eligible to receiveconsumer profile data, in which case, any data partner not designated asineligible to receive consumer profile data may receive consumer profiledata. Accordingly, any data partner system 308 that is eligible toreceive consumer profile data (whether a consumer specificallydesignates the data partner system 308 as privileged or the data partnersystem 308 is simply not designated as ineligible to receive consumerprofile data, as described above) may receive a consumer profile (step504).

Further, in various embodiments, data partner system 308 may receive aconsumer profile based upon or in response to a visit by the consumer tothe digital destination associated with data partner system 308 (e.g.,in response to a consumer participating in a single sign on processand/or in response to an authentication by the consumer to a consumeraccount). For instance, data partner system 308 may access a consumertracking cookie stored on web client 302, which may facilitate a requestby data partner system 308 to trusted system 306 for a consumer profile.Trusted system 306 may, in response, distribute the requested consumerprofile to data partner system 308.

In addition, in various embodiments, data partner system 308 may receivea group or plurality of consumer profiles. Data partner system 308 mayreceive a group of consumer profiles based upon a consumer preferencethat each consumer profile shares in common. More particularly, datapartner system 308 may not receive all of the consumer profilesassociated with consumers currently visiting a digital destinationassociated with data partner system 308. Rather, data partner system 308may receive a group of consumer profiles associated with consumers whoseprofiles include a particular consumer preference or group of consumerpreferences. Thus, data partner system 308 may receive a filtered set ofconsumer profiles based upon, for example, a particular set of consumersto whom a data partner has an interest in delivering tailored content.

Having received a consumer profile, a data partner system 308 mayanalyze the consumer profile to identify tailored content for a consumer(step 506). More particularly, in various embodiments, data partnersystem 308 may analyze one or more preferences and/or subpreferences(see FIG. 2 for an illustrative consumer profile) to identify tailoredcontent (see FIG. 1 for illustrative content) for the consumer basedupon the consumer profile. For example, data partner system 308 mayidentify tailored content, such as an offer and/or an advertisement, fora consumer based on a comparison of one or more preferences and/orsubpreferences comprising a consumer profile (for example, apreference/subpreference for a particular type of travel 208, 208 a-208c) to particular content (for example, content 102). In variousembodiments, data partner system 308 may retrieve content for comparisonto a consumer profile from a data partner content database 312, asdescribed elsewhere herein. Where a consumer's preferences and/orsubpreferences match or are similar (or substantially matching and/orsimilar) to content and/or metadata associated with the content, a datapartner system 308 may determine that the content is tailored and/oridentify the content as tailored to the consumer. Thus, a consumerprofile may enable the provision and delivery of targeted, relevant,and/or tailored content to a consumer. Such content may be communicatedor transmitted directly to a consumer by data partner system 308 (step506), and/or tailored content may be transmitted by data partner system308 to trusted system 306 (step 508).

In various embodiments (e.g., where trusted system 306 receives tailoredcontent from data partner system 308, as described above), trustedsystem 306 may transmit tailored content to a consumer (step 510). Forexample, in various embodiments, a consumer may view tailored contentusing web client 302, which may receive tailored content from trustedsystem 306. Similarly, a consumer may receive tailored content at aphysical mail box, via email, via a social networking website, and/or inany other similar manner. Thus, trusted system 306 may protect or shielda consumer and/or PII associated with a consumer from review by datapartner system 308 (because, in various embodiments, data partner system308 must transmit tailored content to trusted system 306 for delivery toa consumer). A consumer may therefore rely on trusted system 306 toprotect his identity from theft and/or tampering, which may, asdescribed elsewhere herein, encourage consumers to interact with vaguelyknown and/or unknown data partners as well as provide a greater sourceof consumer profile data to data partners, which data partners may useto better tailor content to consumers.

In various embodiments, trusted system 306 may transmit tailored contentto a consumer from a variety of data partner systems 308 (each of whichmay generate tailored content based upon consumer profile data), and/ortrusted system 306 may require or facilitate bidding between a varietyof data partner systems 308 identifying tailored content. Moreover, invarious embodiments, trusted system 306 may transmit, organize, orfilter selected tailored content based on a particular criterion and/orset of criteria, e.g., based on a price associated with the tailoredcontent. For instance, where tailored content comprises an offer, avariety of data partner systems 308 may wish to make a consumer an offerfor a same, similar, or related item, in which case trusted system 306may filter or organize tailored content based upon a lowest price or alowest set of prices. Further, trusted system 306 may accept bids fromdata partner systems 306 for a specified bidding period, in response towhich a lowest bid or group of bids may be transmitted to a consumer.

Further, in various embodiments, data partner system 108 may tailor adigital destination (which may comprise content and/or be regarded ascontent) based upon a consumer profile. More particularly, data partnersystem 108 may tailor a digital destination such that content related toone or more consumer preferences is presented to a consumer. Forexample, data partner system 108 may tailor or personalize a digitaldestination based upon a consumer profile containing consumerpreferences for travel in the tropics during the summertime and at aprice under $2000.00 (see, e.g., FIG. 2). Thus, data partner system 308may display a digital destination tailored to a consumer with theforegoing consumer profile (e.g., the consumer may see content, such asa news article, related to Hawaii or South America, both of which maysatisfy or be related to all or a part of the consumer's preferences).In addition, as described elsewhere herein, a digital destination may becustomized in response to a single sign on process and/or in response toan authentication by a consumer to a consumer account (e.g., a button“click” and/or a selection of a button or option displayed by a websiteand/or a web based interface, such as, for example, a button or optionto authenticate or “sign in” to a consumer account).

In response to receiving tailored content, a consumer may make apurchase and/or otherwise engage in a transaction with a data partnersystem (step 510). A transaction may be processed according to a varietyof options. For example, trusted system 306 may facilitate atransaction. Where trusted system 306 facilitates a transaction, aconsumer's anonymity and security may be further preserved, and/or aconsumer may not be required to manually provide to data partner system308 certain information. For example, trusted system 306 may receive atransaction request from a consumer (e.g., which is based on tailoredcontent), and trusted system 306 may, in response, communicate theconsumer's transaction account information (e.g., the consumer'stransaction account number) to data partner system 308 for furtherprocessing. Similarly, trusted system 306 may, in response to atransaction request, communicate directly with data partner system 308to process the transaction request, such that data partner system 308receives payment but is not provided the consumer's transaction accountinformation. For example, trusted system 306 may transmit a transactionrequest to data partner system 308, and data partner system 308 may, inresponse, communicate a reply (e.g., indicating that a requested item isin stock or available). In response, trusted system 306 may remitpayment to data partner system 308, whereupon data partner system 308may ship or otherwise make available the purchased item to the consumer.

In various embodiments, trusted system 306 may update a consumer profilebased upon feedback and/or feedback data (step 512). Trusted system 306may receive feedback from data partner system 308, and/or trusted system306 may receive feedback as part of a consumer's transaction accounthistory. For example, where tailored content is delivered to a consumer,trusted system may compare the consumer's transaction account historyover the course of a particular period of time (e.g., the previousmonth) to tailored content delivered to the consumer during the sametime period. Where, for example, the consumer's transaction accounthistory indicates that the consumer purchased an item associated withcertain delivered tailored content, trusted system 306 may adjust theconsumer's consumer profile (e.g., one or more preferences and/orsubpreferences) such that the consumer profile is reinforced orassociated with a stronger preference and/or subpreference for contentassociated with the item. Similarly, where a consumer's transactionaccount history indicates that a consumer did not purchase an itemassociated with certain delivered tailored content, trusted system 306may adjust the consumer's consumer profile such that the consumerprofile is not reinforced or associated with a lesser or reducedpreference and/or subpreference for content associated with the item.Trusted system may react in similar fashion to feedback received fromdata partner system 308, except that, for example, data partner system308 may, in various embodiments, provide feedback as to which tailoredcontent a consumer clicked on or selected (“clickthrough data”). Trustedsystem 306 may process clickthrough data, as described with reference totransaction history information, to increase or decrease a consumer'spreference and/or subpreference for content associated with a particularitem. Thus, over time, trusted system 306 may “learn” about and/orrefine a consumer's preferences and/or subpreferences based uponfeedback received in relation to the consumer's purchasing activity,browsing activity, and/or the like.

Further, in various embodiments, trusted system 306 may calculate aneffectiveness associated with tailored content (e.g., an effectivenessof an advertisement). For example, trusted system 306 may calculate aneffectiveness of tailored content based upon a comparison of aconsumer's purchasing activity to the tailored content that wasdistributed to the consumer. For example, tailored content may beregarded as effective or effectively tailored where a comparison of thetailored content to a consumer's transaction history shows that theconsumer was exposed to the tailored content and soon thereafter orlater purchased an item related to the tailored content. Moreover, invarious embodiments, trusted system 306 may evaluate a consumer'stransaction history to ascertain a purchase objective associated withthe consumer (e.g., business, pleasure, luxury, necessity, gift, and thelike).

Thus, with system 100, consumers may receive tailored content based upona consumer profile. In various embodiments, consumers may designateprivileged data partners with whom they are interested in dealing, andthese data partners may alone receive consumer profile data. Further,where consumers wish to make purchases from one or more data partners,system 300 may reduce or eliminate the process of manual data entrytypically required (e.g., consumers may not be required to entershipping and/or billing information, transaction account information,and the like). System 300 may further safeguard consumer privacy duringa purchasing process by processing a transaction request such that adata partner system 308 is not provided PI such as, for example,consumer transaction account information.

As described above, in various embodiments, data partner system 308 maynot analyze (and/or may not be the only system that analyzes) consumerprofile data to identify tailored content for a consumer. Rather, invarious embodiments, trusted system 306 may analyze content provided bydata partner system 308 to identify or offer tailored content to aconsumer.

Accordingly, with reference now to FIG. 6, a process 600 for identifyingand delivering tailored content based upon an analysis performed bytrusted system 306 is shown. In general, process 600 is similar toprocess 500 (described above), except that trusted system 306 mayidentify tailored content (as opposed to data partner system 308).Therefore, as described above with respect to process 500, trustedsystem 306 may, like data partner system 308, identify tailored contentbased upon a comparison of consumer profile data to content (step 602).More particularly, tailored content may be identified by trusted system306 by comparing one or more preferences and/or subpreferences includedin a consumer profile to one or more characteristics or metadataassociated with content. Trusted system 306 may retrieve content forcomparison to a consumer profile from centralized content database 310.However, trusted system 306 may also access data partner contentdatabase 312 to retrieve content. Accordingly, where one or morepreferences and/or subpreferences match or are similar to content and/ormetadata associated with the content, trusted system 306 may determinethat the content is tailored content and/or identify the content astailored content. Having identified content that is tailored to aconsumer, trusted system 306 may transmit the tailored content to theconsumer (step 604), and/or a consumer may make a purchase (as describedabove, see discussion surrounding step 510) from a data partner system308 (step 606). In addition, as described above (see discussionsurrounding step 512), trusted system 306 may update a consumer profilebased upon feedback data.

In various embodiments, trusted system 306 and/or data partner system308 may identify “featured content.” Featured content may comprisetailored content that is transmitted to a consumer, as describedelsewhere herein, in addition to tailored content. Featured content mayitself comprise tailored content. To illustrate, where tailored contentcomprises, for example, tailored content associated with travel,featured content may comprise content relevant to a consumer profilethat is related to news, weather, sports, offers, and the like (e.g.,content that is unrelated or not specifically related to travel). Thisfeatured content may be provided or transmitted to a consumer togetherwith other tailored content. Thus, a consumer may receive and/or reviewtailored content as well as a variety of featured content, such ascontent related to news, weather, sports, etc. (depending upon theconsumer's consumer profile).

For purposes of illustration, and with reference now to FIG. 7, anexample embodiment of system 300, and the operation thereof, ispresented. As shown, a consumer may visit a digital destination (e.g., adigital destination hosted by a data partner system 308) (step 702). Aconsumer may further authenticate to a consumer account (as describedelsewhere herein) via a sign in option (e.g., a “button” and/or aninterface option) that is presented or displayed by the digitaldestination (steps 704 and 706).

Moreover, in various embodiments, a consumer may authenticate to aconsumer account by way of an option to tailor the digital destination(e.g., “tailor destination”), and/or a consumer may simply select suchan option. In response to a successful authentication and/or in responseto a selection of an option to tailor a destination (whether the optionresults in an authentication of the consumer to a consumer account),trusted system 306 may transmit a consumer profile associated with theconsumer to data partner system 308. For example, where a consumerselects an option to tailor a digital destination, a consumer profilemay be transmitted to a data partner system 308, because the consumerwas earlier authenticated to a consumer account (e.g., by way of asingle sign on process, as described elsewhere herein), and/or becausethe consumer is authenticated to a consumer account in response toselection by the consumer of the option to tailor the digitaldestination.

Based on the consumer profile, data partner system 308 may tailor orpersonalize the digital destination (e.g., as described elsewhereherein) such that content related to the consumer profile is displayed(step 710). For example, data partner system 308 may tailor a digitaldestination such that the digital destination includes one or moresections or portions that are based upon the consumer profile. Thus,where for example a consumer profile shows that a consumer is interestedin travel, a travel section of the digital destination may be displayedfor the consumer. In addition, in various embodiments, tailored contentmay be identified, as described elsewhere herein, and displayed by adigital destination. Moreover, content (e.g., sections, articles, etc.)that is typically unavailable to individuals who are not associated withconsumer profiles may be displayed for a consumer who is associated witha consumer profile.

Further, although in various embodiments, trusted system 306 maytransmit a consumer profile to data partner system 308, whereupon datapartner system 308 may tailor a digital destination, in variousembodiments, trusted system 306 may (as described elsewhere herein)identify tailored content (again, as described elsewhere herein) whichmay be transmitted by trusted system 306 to data partner system 308.Data partner system 308 may utilize received tailored content to tailora digital destination, as described above and elsewhere herein. Further,in various embodiments, data partner system 308 may tailor a digitaldestination, as described above and elsewhere herein, based upon aconsumer profile (e.g., relevant sections may be displayed) and/or basedupon tailored content. Thus, either or both of data partner system 308and/or trusted system 306 may, in various embodiments, identify tailoredcontent and/or tailor a digital destination.

In various embodiments (e.g., where a consumer selects a particularsection of a tailored digital destination), additional tailored contentmay be displayed (step 712). For instance, a consumer may be shown atailored article based upon the consumer profile which may, in variousembodiments, also be related to a topic associated with the tailoredsection selected by the consumer (e.g., travel). Thus, as an example, aconsumer may be shown a tailored article that gives a review of a newresort in the Bahamas. As described herein, the tailored article may beidentified by data partner system 306 as relevant to the consumer basedupon the consumer profile, which may associated with consumer with apreference for travel based upon data showing that the consumer madeprevious purchases in similar locations (e.g., Hawaii and Florida) aswell as that the consumer recently reviewed information and/or one ormore reviews associated with the Bahamas via another digital destination(e.g., a travel advisor website).

The consumer may review the tailored article shown by the digitaldestination, and, in various embodiments, the digital destination maypresent a tailored offer based upon the consumer's review of thetailored article (step 714). For example, where the tailored articlerelates, as described above, to a resort in the Bahamas, the consumermay be shown a tailored offer for a vacation package at the resort. Thevacation package may include, to illustrate, a four night stay at theresort plus one night free at the resort (for a total of five nights), adiscounted companion airfare from the Newark, N.J. airport, and an allday dining pass at the resort). Again, as described herein, the tailoredarticle may be identified by data partner system 306 as relevant to theconsumer based upon the consumer profile, which may indicate an interestin travel based upon data, such as, for example, that the consumer haspurchased items in the past from one or more similar locations (e.g.,Orlando, Miami, etc.), that the consumer tends to stay at least fivenights in any resort to which the consumer travels, that the consumertends to travel with a family member or members for vacation trips, thatthe consumer has purchased dining packages as part of one or moreprevious trip purchases, that the consumer typically or often travelsfrom the Newark, N.J. airport, that the consumer has discussed visitingthe Bahamas on the consumer's FACEBOOK page, that the consumer typicallyor often takes vacations during the summertime, which is approaching,that the consumer appeared to be interested in the tailored articlebased upon the fact that the consumer lingered for several minutes onthe tailored article (suggesting that the consumer read all or a portionof the tailored article), and/or the like.

Having received the tailored offer, the consumer may, in variousembodiments, select an option to view more information about the offer,which may cause the digital destination to show the consumer, forexample, terms and conditions associated with the offer, detailedinformation about the offer, an option to book the vacation packageassociated with the offer, and the like (step 716). The consumer may, inaddition, book the vacation package through the digital destinationand/or through the consumer's account, as described herein (step 718).

For purposes of illustration, and with reference now to FIG. 8, anexample embodiment of system 300, and the operation thereof, ispresented. Accordingly, in various embodiments, a consumer maymanipulate a consumer profile to actively solicit or locate content inwhich the consumer is interested. In other words, a consumer maycontribute data to a consumer profile according to content in which theconsumer is interested (step 802). Thus, a consumer may, for example,plan an experience in which the consumer is interested by manipulating aconsumer profile to include preferences for the experience and/orcontent in which the consumer is interested. For instance, a consumerwho is interested in receiving content related to a vacation in Hawaiimay contribute data to a consumer profile so that a consumer profile isaggregated in which a first preference is for lodging in Hawaii, asecond preference for scuba diving charters, a third preference fordining out on a particular island in the Hawaiian chain of islands, anda fourth preference for departure and return flights. For example, asdescribed elsewhere herein, a consumer may simply contribute a specificpreference.

In various embodiments, a consumer profile may be communicated to one ormore data partner systems 308, each of which may, as described elsewhereherein, identify and/or bid on tailored content in response (asdescribed elsewhere herein). Similarly, in various embodiments, one ormore data partner systems 308 may provide content to a content database310 and/or 312, as described elsewhere herein, and trusted system 306identify tailored content in response. In addition, in variousembodiments, a list of tailored content may be ordered or prioritized,as described elsewhere herein, so that most relevant content is shown toa consumer first (e.g., toward the top of a list of content), whilecontent that is less relevant is shown to a consumer later in a list(step 804). Further still, in various embodiments, tailored content maybe identified for a consumer over a period of time (e.g., several days,weeks, and/or months). Thus, for example, a consumer may review avariety of tailored content (e.g., a variety of vacation offers) over aperiod of time before deciding on a particular offer to accept (step806).

Further still, in various embodiments, and as described elsewhereherein, system 300 may identify tailored content for a consumer basedupon a trigger event. For example, in various embodiments, system 300may identify tailored content based upon a trigger event, such as a lifeevent (e.g., an anniversary, a birthday, etc.) and/or a price. A lifeevent and/or a price may, in various embodiments, comprise a part of aconsumer profile (e.g., a preference and/or subprefereference). Thus, invarious embodiments, system 300 may, as described elsewhere herein,identify tailored content based upon a trigger event.

In addition, in various embodiments, a consumer may be able to sharepast and/or planned experiences (as described elsewhere herein) withother consumers in a social network. For example, a consumer may, invarious embodiments, share a past and/or planned experience (e.g., avacation to Hawaii) with others in the consumer's social network.Similarly, as described elsewhere herein, a consumer's past experiencesmay contribute to and/or feedback into a consumer profile, which may, inturn, improve the accuracy and value of a consumer profile. Moreover, invarious embodiments, although a consumer may have selected a particularexperience (e.g., the consumer may have planned a vacation to aparticular location), system 300 may incorporate the consumer's futureor planned experience into the consumer profile in order to identifycontent that is similar to the planned experience but which is perhapsmore appealing (e.g., system 300 may identify content related to anexperience which is less expensive and/or closer to the consumer'sresidence).

Further still, in various embodiments, system 300 may enable and/orperform budget forecasting. For example, in various embodiments, trustedsystem 306 may forecast a budget for an upcoming experience based uponan amount spent by a consumer on a particular past experience (e.g., avacation taken in the past). For instance, trusted system 306 maycalculate that a consumer spent a first amount on tickets for a pastexperience (e.g., a cruise), but that the consumer also spent a secondamount during the experience. Thus, trusted system 306 may forecast thatthe consumer will spend the first amount plus the second amount on theupcoming experience, particularly where the upcoming experience issimilar to or the same as the past experience.

Systems, methods and computer program products are provided. In thedetailed description herein, references to “various embodiments”, “oneembodiment”, “an embodiment”, “an example embodiment”, etc., indicatethat the embodiment described may include a particular feature,structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not necessarilyinclude the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover,such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment.Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic isdescribed in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it iswithin the knowledge of one skilled in the art to effect such feature,structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodimentswhether or not explicitly described.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein are implementedusing the various particular machines described herein. The methodsdescribed herein may be implemented using the below particular machines,and those hereinafter developed, in any suitable combination, as wouldbe appreciated immediately by one skilled in the art. Further, as isunambiguous from this disclosure, the methods described herein mayresult in various transformations of certain articles.

For the sake of brevity, conventional data networking, applicationdevelopment and other functional aspects of the systems (and componentsof the individual operating components of the systems) may not bedescribed in detail herein. Furthermore, the connecting lines shown inthe various figures contained herein are intended to represent exemplaryfunctional relationships and/or physical couplings between the variouselements. It should be noted that many alternative or additionalfunctional relationships or physical connections may be present in apractical system.

The various system components discussed herein may include one or moreof the following: a host server or other computing systems including aprocessor for processing digital data; a memory coupled to the processorfor storing digital data; an input digitizer coupled to the processorfor inputting digital data; an application program stored in the memoryand accessible by the processor for directing processing of digital databy the processor; a display device coupled to the processor and memoryfor displaying information derived from digital data processed by theprocessor; and a plurality of databases. Various databases used hereinmay include: client data; merchant data; financial institution data;and/or like data useful in the operation of the system. As those skilledin the art will appreciate, user computer may include an operatingsystem (e.g., Windows NT, Windows 95/98/2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista,Windows 7, OS2, UNIX, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, etc.) as well as variousconventional support software and drivers typically associated withcomputers. A user may include any individual, business, entity,government organization, software and/or hardware that interact with asystem.

In various embodiments, various components, modules, and/or engines ofsystem 100 may be implemented as micro-applications or micro-apps.Micro-apps are typically deployed in the context of a mobile operatingsystem, including for example, a Palm mobile operating system, a Windowsmobile operating system, an Android Operating System, Apple iOS, aBlackberry operating system and the like. The micro-app may beconfigured to leverage the resources of the larger operating system andassociated hardware via a set of predetermined rules which govern theoperations of various operating systems and hardware resources. Forexample, where a micro-app desires to communicate with a device ornetwork other than the mobile device or mobile operating system, themicro-app may leverage the communication protocol of the operatingsystem and associated device hardware under the predetermined rules ofthe mobile operating system. Moreover, where the micro-app desires aninput from a user, the micro-app may be configured to request a responsefrom the operating system which monitors various hardware components andthen communicates a detected input from the hardware to the micro-app.

The system contemplates uses in association with web services, utilitycomputing, pervasive and individualized computing, security and identitysolutions, autonomic computing, cloud computing, conmmodity computing,mobility and wireless solutions, open source, biometrics, grid computingand/or mesh computing.

Any databases discussed herein may include relational, hierarchical,graphical, or object-oriented structure and/or any other databaseconfigurations. Common database products that may be used to implementthe databases include DB2 by iBM (Armonk, N.Y.), various databaseproducts available from Oracle Corporation (Redwood Shores, Calif.),Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server by Microsoft Corporation(Redmond, Wash.), MySQL by MySQL AB (Uppsala, Sweden), or any othersuitable database product. Moreover, the databases may be organized inany suitable manner, for example, as data tables or lookup tables. Eachrecord may be a single file, a series of files, a linked series of datafields or any other data structure. Association of certain data may beaccomplished through any desired data association technique such asthose known or practiced in the art. For example, the association may beaccomplished either manually or automatically. Automatic associationtechniques may include, for example, a database search, a databasemerge, GREP, AGREP, SQL, using a key field in the tables to speedsearches, sequential searches through all the tables and files, sortingrecords in the file according to a known order to simplify lookup,and/or the like. The association step may be accomplished by a databasemerge function, for example, using a “key field” in pre-selecteddatabases or data sectors. Various database tuning steps arecontemplated to optimize database performance. For example, frequentlyused files such as indexes may be placed on separate file systems toreduce In/Out (“I/O”) bottlenecks.

More particularly, a “key field” partitions the database according tothe high-level class of objects defined by the key field. For example,certain types of data may be designated as a key field in a plurality ofrelated data tables and the data tables may then be linked on the basisof the type of data in the key field. The data corresponding to the keyfield in each of the linked data tables is preferably the same or of thesame type. However, data tables having similar, though not identical,data in the key fields may also be linked by using AGREP, for example.In accordance with one embodiment, any suitable data storage techniquemay be utilized to store data without a standard format. Data sets maybe stored using any suitable technique, including, for example, storingindividual files using an ISO/IEC 7816-4 file structure; implementing adomain whereby a dedicated file is selected that exposes one or moreelementary files containing one or more data sets; using data setsstored in individual files using a hierarchical filing system; data setsstored as records in a single file (including compression, SQLaccessible, hashed via one or more keys, numeric, alphabetical by firsttuple, etc.); Binary Large Object (BLOB); stored as ungrouped dataelements encoded using ISO/IEC 7816-6 data elements; stored as ungroupeddata elements encoded using ISO/IEC Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN.1) asin ISO/IEC 8824 and 8825; and/or other proprietary techniques that mayinclude fractal compression methods, image compression methods, etc.

In various embodiments, the ability to store a wide variety ofinformation in different formats is facilitated by storing theinformation as a BLOB. Thus, any binary information can be stored in astorage space associated with a data set. As discussed above, the binaryinformation may be stored on the financial transaction instrument orexternal to but affiliated with the financial transaction instrument.The BLOB method may store data sets as ungrouped data elements formattedas a block of binary via a fixed memory offset using either fixedstorage allocation, circular queue techniques, or best practices withrespect to memory management (e.g., paged memory, least recently used,etc.). By using BLOB methods, the ability to store various data setsthat have different formats facilitates the storage of data associatedwith the financial transaction instrument by multiple and unrelatedowners of the data sets. For example, a first data set which may bestored may be provided by a first party, a second data set which may bestored may be provided by an unrelated second party, and yet a thirddata set which may be stored, may be provided by an third partyunrelated to the first and second party. Each of these three exemplarydata sets may contain different information that is stored usingdifferent data storage formats and/or techniques. Further, each data setmay contain subsets of data that also may be distinct from othersubsets.

As stated above, in various embodiments, the data can be stored withoutregard to a common format. However, in one exemplary embodiment, thedata set (e.g., BLOB) may be annotated in a standard manner whenprovided for manipulating the data onto the financial transactioninstrument. The annotation may comprise a short header, trailer, orother appropriate indicator related to each data set that is configuredto convey information useful in managing the various data sets. Forexample, the annotation may be called a “condition header”, “header”,“trailer”, or “status”, herein, and may comprise an indication of thestatus of the data set or may include an identifier correlated to aspecific issuer or owner of the data. In one example, the first threebytes of each data set BLOB may be configured or configurable toindicate the status of that particular data set; e.g., LOADED,INITIALIZED, READY, BLOCKED, REMOVABLE, or DELETED. Subsequent bytes ofdata may be used to indicate for example, the identity of the issuer,user, transaction/membership account identifier or the like. Each ofthese condition annotations are further discussed herein.

The data set annotation may also be used for other types of statusinformation as well as various other purposes. For example, the data setannotation may include security information establishing access levels.The access levels may, for example, be configured to permit only certainindividuals, levels of employees, companies, or other entities to accessdata sets, or to permit access to specific data sets based on thetransaction, merchant, issuer, user or the like. Furthermore, thesecurity information may restrict/permit only certain actions such asaccessing, modifying, and/or deleting data sets. In one example, thedata set annotation indicates that only the data set owner or the userare permitted to delete a data set, various identified users may bepermitted to access the data set for reading, and others are altogetherexcluded from accessing the data set. However, other access restrictionparameters may also be used allowing various entities to access a dataset with various permission levels as appropriate.

The data, including the header or trailer may be received by a standalone interaction device configured to add, delete, modify, or augmentthe data in accordance with the header or trailer. As such, in oneembodiment, the header or trailer is not stored on the transactiondevice along with the associated issuer-owned data but instead theappropriate action may be taken by providing to the transactioninstrument user at the stand alone device, the appropriate option forthe action to be taken. The system may contemplate a data storagearrangement wherein the header or trailer, or header or trailer history,of the data is stored on the transaction instrument in relation to theappropriate data.

One skilled in the art will also appreciate that, for security reasons,any databases, systems, devices, servers or other components of thesystem may consist of any combination thereof at a single location or atmultiple locations, wherein each database or system includes any ofvarious suitable security features, such as firewalls, access codes,encryption, decryption, compression, decompression, and/or the like.

Encryption may be performed by way of any of the techniques nowavailable in the art or which may become available—e.g., Twofish, RSA,El Gamal, Schorr signature, DSA, PGP, PKI, and symmetric and asymmetriccryptosystems.

The computing unit of the web client may be further equipped with anInternet browser connected to the Internet or an intranet using standarddial-up, cable, DSL or any other Internet protocol known in the art.Transactions originating at a web client may pass through a firewall inorder to prevent unauthorized access from users of other networks.Further, additional firewalls may be deployed between the varyingcomponents of CMS to further enhance security.

Firewall may include any hardware and/or software suitably configured toprotect CMS components and/or enterprise computing resources from usersof other networks. Further, a firewall may be configured to limit orrestrict access to various systems and components behind the firewallfor web clients connecting through a web server. Firewall may reside invarying configurations including Stateful Inspection, Proxy based,access control lists, and Packet Filtering among others. Firewall may beintegrated within an web server or any other CMS components or mayfurther reside as a separate entity. A firewall may implement networkaddress translation (“NAT”) and/or network address port translation(“NAPT”). A firewall may accommodate various tunneling protocols tofacilitate secure communications, such as those used in virtual privatenetworking. A firewall may implement a demilitarized zone (“DMZ”) tofacilitate communications with a public network such as the Internet. Afirewall may be integrated as software within an Internet server, anyother application server components or may reside within anothercomputing device or may take the form of a standalone hardwarecomponent.

The computers discussed herein may provide a suitable website or otherInternet-based graphical user interface which is accessible by users. Inone embodiment, the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS),Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), and Microsoft SQL Server, are usedin conjunction with the Microsoft operating system, Microsoft NT webserver software, a Microsoft SQL Server database system, and a MicrosoftCommerce Server. Additionally, components such as Access or MicrosoftSQL Server, Oracle, Sybase. Informix MySQL, Interbase, etc., may be usedto provide an Active Data Object (ADO) compliant database managementsystem. In one embodiment, the Apache web server is used in conjunctionwith a Linux operating system, a MySQL database, and the Perl, PHP,and/or Python programming languages.

Any of the communications, inputs, storage, databases or displaysdiscussed herein may be facilitated through a website having web pages.The term “web page” as it is used herein is not meant to limit the typeof documents and applications that might be used to interact with theuser. For example, a typical website might include, in addition tostandard HTML documents, various forms, Java applets, JavaScript, activeserver pages (ASP), common gateway interface scripts (CGI), extensiblemarkup language (XML), dynamic HTML, cascading style sheets (CSS), AJAX(Asynchronous Javascript And XML), helper applications, plug-ins, andthe like. A server may include a web service that receives a requestfrom a web server, the request including a URL(http://yahoo.conmstockquotes/ge) and an IP address (123.56.789.234).The web server retrieves the appropriate web pages and sends the data orapplications for the web pages to the IP address. Web services areapplications that are capable of interacting with other applicationsover a communications means, such as the internet. Web services aretypically based on standards or protocols such as XML, SOAP, AJAX, WSDLand UDDL Web services methods are well known in the art, and are coveredin many standard texts. See, e.g., ALEX NGHIEM, IT WEB SERVICES: AROADMAP FOR THE ENTERPRISE (2003), hereby incorporated by reference.

Middleware may include any hardware and/or software suitably configuredto facilitate communications and/or process transactions betweendisparate computing systems. Middleware components are commerciallyavailable and known in the art. Middleware may be implemented throughcommercially available hardware and/or software, through custom hardwareand/or software components, or through a combination thereof. Middlewaremay reside in a variety of configurations and may exist as a standalonesystem or may be a software component residing on the Internet server.Middleware may be configured to process transactions between the variouscomponents of an application server and any number of internal orexternal systems for any of the purposes disclosed herein. WebSphereMQTM (formerly MQSeries) by IBM, Inc. (Armonk, N.Y.) is an example of acommercially available middleware product. An Enterprise Service Bus(“ESB”) application is another example of middleware.

Practitioners will also appreciate that there are a number of methodsfor displaying data within a browser-based document. Data may berepresented as standard text or within a fixed list, scrollable list,drop-down list, editable text field, fixed text field, pop-up window,and the like. Likewise, there are a number of methods available formodifying data in a web page such as, for example, free text entry usinga keyboard, selection of menu items, check boxes, option boxes, and thelike.

The system and method may be described herein in terms of functionalblock components, screen shots, optional selections and variousprocessing steps. It should be appreciated that such functional blocksmay be realized by any number of hardware and/or software componentsconfigured to perform the specified functions. For example, the systemmay employ various integrated circuit components, e.g., memory elements,processing elements, logic elements, look-up tables, and the like, whichmay carry out a variety of functions under the control of one or moremicroprocessors or other control devices. Similarly, the softwareelements of the system may be implemented with any programming orscripting language such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, VBScript,Macromedia Cold Fusion, COBOL, Microsoft Active Server Pages, assembly,PERL, PHP, awk, Python, Visual Basic, SQL Stored Procedures, PL/SQL, anyUNIX shell script, and extensible markup language (XML) with the variousalgorithms being implemented with any combination of data structures,objects, processes, routines or other programming elements. Further, itshould be noted that the system may employ any number of conventionaltechniques for data transmission, signaling, data processing, networkcontrol, and the like. Still further, the system could be used to detector prevent security issues with a client-side scripting language, suchas JavaScript, VBScript or the like. For a basic introduction ofcryptography and network security, see any of the following references:(1) “Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, And Source Code In C,”by Bruce Schneier, published by John Wiley & Sons (second edition,1995); (2) “Java Cryptography” by Jonathan Knudson, published byO'Reilly & Associates (1998); (3) “Cryptography & Network Security:Principles & Practice” by William Stallings, published by Prentice Hall;all of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

With further regard to terms such as “consumer,” “customer,” “merchant,”and the like, each of these participants may be equipped with acomputing device in order to interact with the system and facilitateonline commerce transactions. A consumer or customer may have acomputing unit in the form of a personal computer, although other typesof computing units may be used including laptops, notebooks, hand heldcomputers, set-top boxes, cellular telephones, touch-tone telephones andthe like. A merchant may have a computing unit implemented in the formof a computer-server, although other implementations are contemplated bythe system. A bank may have a computing center shown as a main framecomputer. However, the bank computing center may be implemented in otherforms, such as a mini-computer, a PC server, a network of computerslocated in the same of different geographic locations, or the like.Moreover, the system contemplates the use, sale or distribution of anygoods, services or information over any network having similarfunctionality described herein

A merchant computer and/or a bank computer may be interconnected via asecond network, referred to as a payment network. The payment networkwhich may be part of certain transactions represents existingproprietary networks that presently accommodate transactions for creditcards, debit cards, and other types of financial/banking cards. Thepayment network is a closed network that is assumed to be secure fromeavesdroppers. Exemplary transaction networks may include the AMERICANEXPRESS, VISANET and the VERIPHONE networks.

An electronic commerce system may be implemented at the customer andissuing bank. In an exemplary implementation, the electronic commercesystem may be implemented as computer software modules loaded onto thecustomer computer and the banking computing center. The merchantcomputer may not require any additional software to participate in theonline commerce transactions supported by the online commerce system.

As will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, the systemmay be embodied as a customization of an existing system, an add-onproduct, a processing apparatus executing upgraded software, a standalone system, a distributed system, a method, a data processing system,a device for data processing, and/or a computer program product.Accordingly, any portion of the system or a module may take the form ofa processing apparatus executing code, an internet based embodiment, anentirely hardware embodiment, or an embodiment combining aspects of theinternet, software and hardware. Furthermore, the system may take theform of a computer program product on a computer-readable storage mediumhaving computer-readable program code means embodied in the storagemedium. Any suitable computer-readable storage medium may be utilized,including hard disks, CD-ROM, optical storage devices, magnetic storagedevices, and/or the like.

The system and method is described herein with reference to screenshots, block diagrams and flowchart illustrations of methods, apparatus(e.g., systems), and computer program products according to variousembodiments. It will be understood that each functional block of theblock diagrams and the flowchart illustrations, and combinations offunctional blocks in the block diagrams and flowchart illustrations,respectively, can be implemented by computer program instructions.

These computer program instructions may be loaded onto a general purposecomputer, special purpose computer, or other programmable dataprocessing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructionsthat execute on the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus create means for implementing the functions specified in theflowchart block or blocks. These computer program instructions may alsobe stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablememory produce an article of manufacture including instruction meanswhich implement the function specified in the flowchart block or blocks.The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series ofoperational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmableapparatus to produce a computer-implemented process such that theinstructions which execute on the computer or other programmableapparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in theflowchart block or blocks.

Accordingly, functional blocks of the block diagrams and flowchartillustrations support combinations of means for performing the specifiedfunctions, combinations of steps for performing the specified functions,and program instruction means for performing the specified functions. Itwill also be understood that each functional block of the block diagramsand flowchart illustrations, and combinations of functional blocks inthe block diagrams and flowchart illustrations, can be implemented byeither special purpose hardware-based computer systems which perform thespecified functions or steps, or suitable combinations of specialpurpose hardware and computer instructions. Further, illustrations ofthe process flows and the descriptions thereof may make reference touser windows, webpages, websites, web forms, prompts, etc. Practitionerswill appreciate that the illustrated steps described herein may comprisein any number of configurations including the use of windows, webpages,web forms, popup windows, prompts and the like. It should be furtherappreciated that the multiple steps as illustrated and described may becombined into single webpages and/or windows but have been expanded forthe sake of simplicity. In other cases, steps illustrated and describedas single process steps may be separated into multiple webpages and/orwindows but have been combined for simplicity.

The term “non-transitory” is to be understood to remove only propagatingtransitory signals per se from the claim scope and does not relinquishrights to all standard computer-readable media that are not onlypropagating transitory signals per se. Stated another way, the meaningof the term “non-transitory computer-readable medium” should beconstrued to exclude only those types of transitory computer-readablemedia which were found in In Re Nuijten to fall outside the scope ofpatentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §101.

Benefits, other advantages, and solutions to problems have beendescribed herein with regard to specific embodiments. However, thebenefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any elements that maycause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become morepronounced are not to be construed as critical, required, or essentialfeatures or elements of the disclosure. The scope of the disclosure isaccordingly to be limited by nothing other than the appended claims, inwhich reference to an element in the singular is not intended to mean“one and only one” unless explicitly so stated, but rather “one ormore.” Moreover, where a phrase similar to ‘at least one of A, B, and C’or ‘at least one of A, B, or C’ is used in the claims or specification,it is intended that the phrase be interpreted to mean that A alone maybe present in an embodiment, B alone may be present in an embodiment, Calone may be present in an embodiment, or that any combination of theelements A, B and C may be present in a single embodiment; for example,A and B, A and C, B and C, or A and B and C. Although the disclosureincludes a method, it is contemplated that it may be embodied ascomputer program instructions on a tangible computer-readable carrier,such as a magnetic or optical memory or a magnetic or optical disk. Allstructural, chemical, and functional equivalents to the elements of theabove-described exemplary embodiments that are known to those ofordinary skill in the art are expressly incorporated herein by referenceand are intended to be encompassed by the present claims. Moreover, itis not necessary for a device or method to address each and everyproblem sought to be solved by the present disclosure, for it to beencompassed by the present claims. Furthermore, no element, component,or method step in the present disclosure is intended to be dedicated tothe public regardless of whether the element, component, or method stepis explicitly recited in the claims. No claim element herein is to beconstrued under the provisions of 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, unlessthe element is expressly recited using the phrase “means for.” As usedherein, the terms “comprises”, “comprising”, or any other variationthereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that aprocess, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elementsdoes not include only those elements but may include other elements notexpressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, orapparatus.

The system may include or interface with any of the foregoing accounts,devices, and/or a transponder and reader (e.g. RFID reader) in RFcommunication with the transponder (which may include a fob), orcommunications between an initiator and a target enabled by near fieldcommunications (NFC). Typical devices may include, for example, a keyring, tag, card, cell phone, wristwatch or any such form capable ofbeing presented for interrogation. Moreover, the system, computing unitor device discussed herein may include a “pervasive computing device,”which may include a traditionally non-computerized device that isembedded with a computing unit. Examples may include watches, Internetenabled kitchen appliances, restaurant tables embedded with RF readers,wallets or purses with imbedded transponders, etc. Furthermore, a deviceor financial transaction instrument may have electronic andcommunications functionality enabled, for example, by: a network ofelectronic circuitry that is printed or otherwise incorporated onto orwithin the transaction instrument (and typically referred to as a “smartcard”); a fob having a transponder and an RFID reader; and/or near fieldcommunication (NFC) technologies. For more information regarding NFC,refer to the following specifications all of which are incorporated byreference herein: ISO/IEC 18092/ECMA-340, Near Field CommunicationInterface and Protocol-1 (NFCIP-1); ISO/IEC 21481/ECMA-352, Near FieldCommunication Interface and Protocol-2 (NFCIP-2); and EMV 4.2 availableat http://www.emvco.com rdefault.aspx.

The account number may be distributed and stored in any form of plastic,electronic, magnetic, radio frequency, wireless, audio and/or opticaldevice capable of transmitting or downloading data from itself to asecond device. A consumer account number may be, for example, asixteen-digit account number, although each credit provider has its ownnumbering system, such as the fifteen-digit numbering system used byAmerican Express. Each company's account numbers comply with thatcompany's standardized format such that the company using afifteen-digit format will generally use three-spaced sets of numbers, asrepresented by the number “0000 000000 00000”. The first five to sevendigits are reserved for processing purposes and identify the issuingbank, account type, etc. In this example, the last (fifteenth) digit isused as a sum check for the fifteen digit number. The intermediaryeight-to-eleven digits are used to uniquely identify the consumer. Amerchant account number may be, for example, any number or alpha-numericcharacters that identify a particular merchant for purposes of accountacceptance, account reconciliation, reporting, or the like.

In various embodiments, an account number may identify a consumer. Inaddition, in various embodiments, a consumer may be identified by avariety of identifiers, including, for example, an email address, atelephone number, a cookie id, a radio frequency identifier (RFID), abiometric, and the like.

Phrases and terms similar to “financial institution” or “transactionaccount issuer” may include any entity that offers transaction accountservices. Although often referred to as a “financial institution,” thefinancial institution may represent any type of bank, lender or othertype of account issuing institution, such as credit card companies, cardsponsoring companies, or third party issuers under contract withfinancial institutions. It is further noted that other participants maybe involved in some phases of the transaction, such as an intermediarysettlement institution.

The terms “payment vehicle,” “financial transaction instrument,”“transaction instrument” and/or the plural form of these terms may beused interchangeably throughout to refer to a financial instrument.

Phrases and terms similar to “internal data” or “closed loop data” mayinclude any data a credit issuer possesses or acquires pertaining to aparticular consumer. Internal data may be gathered before, during, orafter a relationship between the credit issuer and the transactionaccount holder (e.g., the consumer or buyer). Such data may includeconsumer demographic data. Consumer demographic data includes any datapertaining to a consumer. Consumer demographic data may include consumername, address, telephone number, email address, employer and socialsecurity number. Consumer transactional data is any data pertaining tothe particular transactions in which a consumer engages during any giventime period. Consumer transactional data may include, for example,transaction amount, transaction time, transaction vendor/merchant, andtransaction vendor/merchant location. Transaction vendor/merchantlocation may contain a high degree of specificity to a vendor/merchant.For example, transaction vendor/merchant location may include aparticular gasoline filing station in a particular postal code locatedat a particular cross section or address. Also, for example, transactionvendor/merchant location may include a particular web address, such as aUniform Resource Locator (“URL”), an email address and/or an InternetProtocol (“IP”) address for a vendor/merchant. Transactionvendor/merchant, and transaction vendor/merchant location may beassociated with a particular consumer and further associated with setsof consumers. Consumer payment data includes any data pertaining to aconsumer's history of paying debt obligations. Consumer payment data mayinclude consumer payment dates, payment amounts, balance amount, andcredit limit. Internal data may further comprise records of consumerservice calls, complaints, requests for credit line increases,questions, and comments. A record of a consumer service call includes,for example, date of call, reason for call, and any transcript orsummary of the actual call.

Phrases similar to a “payment processor” may include a company (e.g., athird party) appointed (e.g., by a merchant) to handle transactions formerchant banks. Payment processors may be broken down into two types:front-end and back-end. Front-end payment processors have connections tovarious transaction accounts and supply authorization and settlementservices to the merchant banks' merchants. Back-end payment processorsaccept settlements from front-end payment processors and, via TheFederal Reserve Bank, move money from an issuing bank to the merchantbank. In an operation that will usually take a few seconds, the paymentprocessor will both check the details received by forwarding the detailsto the respective account's issuing bank or card association forverification, and may carry out a series of anti-fraud measures againstthe transaction. Additional parameters, including the account's countryof issue and its previous payment history, may be used to gauge theprobability of the transaction being approved. In response to thepayment processor receiving confirmation that the transaction accountdetails have been verified, the information may be relayed back to themerchant, who will then complete the payment transaction. In response tothe verification being denied, the payment processor relays theinformation to the merchant, who may then decline the transaction.Phrases similar to a “payment gateway” or “gateway” may include anapplication service provider service that authorizes payments fore-businesses, online retailers, and/or traditional brick and mortarmerchants. The gateway may be the equivalent of a physical point of saleterminal located in most retail outlets. A payment gateway may protecttransaction account details by encrypting sensitive information, such astransaction account numbers, to ensure that information passes securelybetween the customer and the merchant and also between merchant andpayment processor.

1. A method comprising: comparing, by a computer-based system fortailoring a digital destination, content to a consumer profile;identifying, by the computer-based system, tailored content based on thecomparing; and transmitting, by the computer-based system, the tailoredcontent to a data partner system, wherein the data partner systemtailors the digital destination based on the tailored content.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising aggregating, by the computer-basedsystem, the consumer profile based upon at least one of: direct data andindirect data.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprisingtransmitting, by the computer-based system, the consumer profile to thedata partner system.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the data partnersystem tailors the digital destination based upon the consumer profile.5. The method of claim 1, further comprising authenticating, by thecomputer-based system, a consumer to a consumer account associated withthe consumer profile based upon a selection of an option displayed bythe digital destination.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprisingidentifying, by the computer-based system, the tailored content basedupon a match between the content and a preference associated with theconsumer profile.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprisingreceiving, by the computer-based system, a transaction request from aweb client associated with the consumer based upon the tailored content.8. A system comprising: a processor for tailoring a digital destination;a tangible, non-transitory memory communicating with the processor; thetangible, non-transitory memory having instructions stored thereon that,in response to execution by the processor, cause the processor toperform operations comprising: comparing, by the processor, content to aconsumer profile; identifying, by the processor, tailored content basedon the comparing; and transmitting, by the processor, the tailoredcontent to a data partner system, wherein the data partner systemtailors the digital destination based on the tailored content.
 9. Thesystem of claim 8, further comprising aggregating, by the processor, theconsumer profile based upon at least one of: direct data and indirectdata.
 10. The system of claim 8, further comprising transmitting, by theprocessor, the consumer profile to the data partner system.
 11. Thesystem of claim 8, wherein the data partner system tailors the digitaldestination based upon the consumer profile.
 12. The system of claim 8,further comprising authenticating, by the processor, a consumer to aconsumer account associated with the consumer profile based upon aselection of an option displayed by the digital destination.
 13. Thesystem of claim 8, further comprising identifying, by the processor, thetailored content based upon a match between the content and a preferenceassociated with the consumer profile.
 14. The method of claim 8, furthercomprising receiving, by the processor, a transaction request from a webclient associated with the consumer based upon the tailored content. 15.An article of manufacture including a non-transitory, tangible computerreadable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, inresponse to execution by a computer-based system for tailoring a digitaldestination, cause the computer-based system to perform operationscomprising: comparing, by the computer-based system, content to aconsumer profile; identifying, by the computer-based system, tailoredcontent based on the comparing; and transmitting, by the computer-basedsystem, the tailored content to a data partner system, wherein the datapartner system tailors the digital destination based on the tailoredcontent.
 16. The article of claim 15, further comprising aggregating, bythe computer-based system, the consumer profile based upon at least oneof: direct data and indirect data.
 17. The article of claim 15, furthercomprising transmitting, by the computer-based system, the consumerprofile to the data partner system.
 18. The article of claim 15, whereinthe data partner system tailors the digital destination based upon theconsumer profile.
 19. The article of claim 15, further comprisingauthenticating, by the computer-based system, a consumer to a consumeraccount associated with the consumer profile based upon a selection ofan option displayed by the digital destination.
 20. The article of claim15, further comprising identifying, by the computer-based system, thetailored content based upon a match between the content and a preferenceassociated with the consumer profile.